EDITORIAL Time To Remember Last week, in an ironic coincidence of dates, Jews began celebrating Passover and tried to ignore the 100th anniversary of the birth of Adolf Hitler. Centenaries are usually reserved for events that have enriched the world. The birth of this man defamed it with his presence. The anniversary left Germans and Austrians in an awkward posi- tion. To ignore it might imply that they had glossed over their igno- ble past, papered it with a disgraceful mass amnesia. To mark it might imply a triumph of the revisionists, those hollow, intellectually- mangled apologists for the Thousand Year Reich. What occurred was a bit of both. Eight people were arrested at a neo-Nazi rally outside Hitler's birthplace in Braunau, Austria. The demonstration occurred a block away from Hitler's birthplace, out- side of which a block of granite from the former Mauthausen con- centration camp was recently erected with the inscription: "For peace, freedom and democracy. Never again Fascism. Millions of dead are a warning." Nothing on the stone explains why it stands in front of the house. According to recent polls, many Austrians and Germans have failed to learn the lessons of the Holocaust. A large majority of Austrians still harbor feelings of anti-Semitism, and 25 percent of Germans give Hitler a positive rating. Thirty-two percent said teachers present the Hitler era "too negatively" and a majority said "others did things just as bad" as Hitler. Forty-four years after Auschwitz and Buchenwald were liberated, this is appalling. But it is an important, perhaps jarring reminder that the events, the tragedies and the lessons of the Holocaust still must be recorded, discussed and remembered. Two of the five plead guilty to charges last fall in an assault on a black student at Birmingham Groves High School. Are these isolated cases, with hatred by a few? Possibly. But we must ques- tion the societal climate, the prevalence of ethnic jokes and racial debasement that encourages a few teens to attack strangers for hav- ing a different skin color. The lesson of the Holocaust is that we can not be indifferent. We can not simply dismiss as bad humor off-color jokes, snide remarks and racial slurs. Events at the University of Michigan and Michigan State University campuses, at a Birmingham high school and in Auburn Hills should be ample warning that racism and stereotyp- ing did not end with the Nazis. Nor are they problems unique to Austria and Germany. The people who paid the highest price for learning this lesson will mark Holocaust Memorial Day at 1:30 p.m. Sunday with their annual memorial academy at the Maple/Drake Jewish Community Center. Shaarit Haplaytah — the Survivors of 1945 will gather to remember their loved ones. We must join with them to recall again the terrible cost of hatred, prejudice and world indifference. Lesson At Home We do not have to travel to Germany or Austria for reminders that the Holocaust must be remembered. District court arraignments were held this week for five young people accused of slurs and assault in Auburn Hills. BEHIND THE HEADLINES The PLO May Be Edging Toward Elections completely withdrawn from the territories and been replaced by a United Nations peacekeeping force. Almost immediately, however, Israeli sources were privately expressing con- fidence that the proposal — reinforced by United States guarantees — would be ultimately accepted by the PLO. HELEN DAVIS Foreign Correspondent D iplomatic sources in London confirmed this week that the Palestine Liberation Organization is willing to compromise over an Israeli formula for elections among Palestinians in the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip, despite public declarations to the contrary. The elections are designed to enable Palestinians to elect non-PLO representatives who will negotiate a far-reaching form of autonomy with the Israeli government as a step on the path to a final settle- ment of the conflict. The proposal for the elec- tions were put to President George Bush by Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir during the Israeli leader's 1 — 6 FRIDAY, APRIL 28, 1989 Yitzhak Rabin: Plan would call for withdrawal. visit to Washington earlier this month. The PLO initially rejected the Shamir plan and insisted that elections could be held only after Israeli troops had According to the sources in London, a secret PLO plan was presented to senior British Foreign Office of- ficials last week by Bassam Abu-Sharif, a senior aide to PLO leader Yassir Arafat. It is understood that the PLO is seeking to win sup- port for its own plan in West European capitals before for- mally presenting it to Washington. The PLO plan does not coin- cide with Shamir's proposal, but it does contain a signifi- cant degree of overlap and there now appears to be suf- ficient common ground bet- ween the two sides to bridge the gap. The PLO has dropped its in- sistence on a complete Israeli withdrawal from the ter- ritories before the elections and is now seeking a withdrawal only from the ma- jor centers of Palestinian population. It has also dropped its de- mand for a United Nations force in territories, which Israel declared would be hostile, and is now suggesting a "multinational" force. "We will accept anyone the Israelis choose," a PLO source was quoted as saying. The PLO is understood to be seeking guarantees which will ensure that elections in the territories and the crea- tion of an autonomous regime under Israeli rule will not represent the final fate of the territories and that it will simply be an interim measure leading to a comprehensive settlement. One Israeli government of- ficial was quoted in London at the weekend as predicting that elections in the ter- ritories could be held within three to four months. In another dramatic development, it has been reported that Israeli Defense Minister Yitzhak Rabin has been engaging in secret con- tacts with Arafat via an un- named Palestinian emissary in the West Bank. Observers note that a close aide to Rabin held extensive talks with Faisal Husseini, regarded as the most promi- nent PLO activist in the ter- Continued on Page 10